Alright ladies and gents, let’s conquer this dungeon and finish this tale from the eyes of the worlds greatest 40k player….Frankie!

Team Zero Comp

So going into round four we were all a little nervous as all of Team Zero Comp was 3-0!

We accidentally slept in and had to rush downstairs for the start of round four. I walk up to the pairing desk and…shit!! I’m playing Justin Cook who won the Nova open 2013 with his OvesaStar. This is going to be my toughest game so far as he is playing the ultimate cheese: three Imperial Knights and three Riptides, haha! I go into this round thinking I am going to lose.

Game 4

We get a mission based around the Relic which will help me out a little bit. We both get +1 to Seize the initiative I give him first turn as I am confident in Vect at this point, especially with a 3+ Seize. He Deploys very defensively with his three Knights in the front and out of range of my Blasters. The Riptides he puts in the back corner so that I cannot shoot them. I deploy very aggressively with everything on the deployment line as I really need to get some hull points knocked off these Knights. I roll the dice and close my eyes as this is a huge roll. Bam! Vect did it again! haha got a 4 and first turn is mine. If you guys knew my Vect you would know this is very out of character for him. I usually never seize. My first round of shooting is pretty bad I end up getting one hull point off of the middle knight. Justin retaliates and makes me jink with two Ravagers but doesn’t actually hurt either one. On turn two I hold my ground and don’t move my Wraithknight or most of my army. I end up taking a hull point off of the Knight coming up the right flank towards my poor Venoms.

Turn two things are not going so well for me. Justin kills two Venoms and takes a hull point off of a Ravager. He moves to mid field applying the pressure.

Turn three will be the deciding round. I jump my Wraithknight over the wall towards the right flank Imperial Knight. Vect and friends move towards the left flank Imperial Knight. I cast Presciance on big baller Wraithknight before his charge. I am able to take two hull points off of the knight on the left flank as he was out of the re-roll invul range for the formation. I make the charge with Vect and the Guardian blob and end up knocking off one hull point with Vect. The Knight luckily doesn’t roll a 6 on stomp but kills most of the Guardians leaving only 2 left. My Wraithknight makes the charge and does a hullpoint with the impact hit. On the charge I end up only doing two hull points so he has one left. Dang it, Wraithknight, I needed a kill! The Imperial Knight luckily misses every attack and does nothing with stomp….. Wow.

Now we go into Justin’s turn, this will be the deciding turn for him, He jumps his third Knight over to Vect’s unit and charges in. While all this is happening his Riptides have been moving more towards mid field and taking fire from my Venoms. This turn he kills all but one Venom and hops closer to the Knight battle.

Now for the close combat of a lifetime! haha, We start with the Vect battle. Vect does one more hull point to the knight and the Farseer ends up doing one as well, so it is down to a single hull point. His attacks kill off the Farseer and the rest of the Guardians but Vect dodges, dips, ducks, dives and dodges again, haha! My Wraithknight man-handles the Imperial Knight he’s fighting but takes 3 wounds from the explosion.

Turn Four I Jump over the wall behind the Knight that just charged Vect. My vehicles move towards the center of the table and shoot into the Riptides, bringing one down. My Wraithknight charges in and kills the Knight with all of his attacks. The explosion scatters back towards the Riptides and kills one of them with a D slap! Vect gets toasted and the Imperial Knight is able to get away from the Wraithknight. On his turn he is able to kill the Wraithknight and one Ravager.

Turn Five rolls around and I am able to grab two objectives, shoot Justin off of one and grabing the Relic with 3 obsec units. I also am able to bring down the Imperial Knight which doesn’t hit anything with the explosion. Unfortunately for Justin the Game ends with me holding those objectives! Great game and much closer than I was expecting. Dark Eldar 4-0.

Game 5

Going into game five I am the last person on the team that is 4-0. I pull a 15 year old kid that has been kicking the shit out of everyone that he had been playing. I am thoroughly impressed that he is 4-0 and is on a very popular team in the area and played all summer against the winner of Adepticon this year for practice, Nick Nanavati.

A couple of his teammates walk up and tell him to watch out because Frankie is a really good player, haha. Unfortunately for me he is playing Wave Serpent spam which is one of my worst match ups. I tell everyone this is going to be a tough game and will come down to turn one. He gets first turn and deploys two Wave Serpents on one flank and 4 Wave Serpents on the other. In my opinion this was a bad tactical choice as it allows me to concentrate on those two and hopefully bring them down quickly. So I deploy all my heavy hitters on that side and pray I am going seize the initiative. I do it yet again! Wow, Vect has been an all-star.

Here goes nothing, I put all my shots into the Wave Serpents and make 4 of them jink. Unfortunately I only end up doing 2 Hull points. Not the turn I needed haha. He returns fire and kills two Venoms and immobilizes a Ravager. T

urn two I do a lot of the same and still am not able to bring down a Wave Serpent. On his turn he basically puts the nail in the coffin. He also drops three units of Swooping Hawks and annihilates Vects Guardians and kill a Ravager. I choose to have Vect go back and kill one of the Swooping Hawk units with Vect and Charge forward with my Farseer that has Precognition. My Farseer makes a charge to a Wave Serpent and does two hull points While my Wraithknight holds down mid field, inching closer to his corner. He Kills the rest of my vehicles and finishes off some of my troops.

Damn, never realized how good Swooping Hawks were. I end up losing the game on Turn 7 with only Vect and two Guardians still alive in the corner. I have never seen someone roll so many 6’s! More than half of his Serpent Shield rolls were 7 shots and most of the time was hitting on 6’s but would still get like 5 hits, haha! Great game and excellent player. Dark Eldar 5-1.

Final Games

That was the end of my Nova run, unfortunately. My next 3 games were against great opponents and I played it out to the very end.

Game 7 I had it won on turn six but went on to turn seven where I needed him to fail one out of five 2+ saves or fail one 4+ cover save. Unfortunately he made both and ended up beating me by 175 victory points with his Drop Pod list, which is my worst match up for sure. I almost had him and it was a lot of fun.

I then played the only Chaos player left in the finals and barely beat him on turn 6 with Vect, a Ravager, and 4 Kabalite Warriors left. Darn Hell Drakes raped my army for 4 turns, haha!

Last game was against an interesting list, it was Necrons allied with the Ork Bully Boyz formation. I concentrated too long on the Scarabs and Spyders while his trucks got too close. Not my best tactical choice but we had a lot of fun and forged some narratives while I got my butt kicked. He was a great opponent and I had him laughing the whole time.

Overall a great event in an awesome area. The terrain was great with lots of line of sight blocking and the opponents I played were awesome. I had so much fun and will for sure be back next year hopefully making it to the top table. Thanks for reading guys and sorry its so long. Its hard to write about 8 games haha.

Awesome bat-reps Frankie. You do a great job of conveying the mounting tension throughout the games making for a very exciting read. Its funny how you mentioned how good the Swooping Hawks are… I use them in every game and they always rock. I’m surprised you don’t see or hear more about them. Anyway great bat-reps and I’m rooting for you to win it all… hopefully the new codex will give you some new options and put you over the top. Keep rockin those Dark Eldar!

I was able to watch Franke vs the three knight and riptide game. It was beyond epic. Vecht basically punching a knight with haywires, while the wraithknight freaking takes multiple knights down was amazing.

Here is a photo from that game. (right after frankies wraithknight knocked one knight out)

That LoS blocking terrain is huge. I continue to point out (to everyone that says Swooping Hawks are ‘good’) that they are ONLY good on tables like the ones at NOVA. On an average table (even a terrain-heavy table), they die like flies. So, YMMV.

Also: Did the odd Serpent Shield firing angle play a role in your loss to the spam list? I’m not looking to rehash the ruling, just interested.

Man when are we gonna see pics of this wraithknight with his superman outfit on? Punches out two knights and then suplexes one back into a riptide? Good game sir you owe me a rematch when I come to LVO!